DOI issue:
No. 70 (January 1899)
DOI article:Charles Cottet's "Au pays de la mer", and other works
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19230#0269
Charles Cottet
everything has been achieved in this memorable
work by genuinely plastic methods—by scrupulously
expressive draughtsmanship, by colouring of extra-
ordinary harmony, by a scheme of composition
which, while perfectly well balanced, is yet full of
spontaneity and life. It is this sense of life par-
ticularly which institutes the triptych's highest
beauty; and to this is added that force which
springs from entire unity. There was danger here
of falling into the obvious error manifest in most
large canvases of to-day—over-diffuseness of matter.
But M. Cottet is equipped with too much logic
to fall into such a trap. Moreover, he derives
his inspiration from too direct a source—from
Nature and from Life themselves. This unity to
which I have alluded M. Cottet achieved in the
most natural way, by giving a common horizon of
blue sea and sky and atmosphere to the three
portions of his scheme. The sea and the sky form
the kit motif'of his work ; they mingle with all the
rest; they are at once the base and the summit,
the starting-point and the goal. It is, as it were,
a strongly marked rhythm running through the
intricacies of a symphony.
This word symphony leads me instinctively to a
comparison which those who know Cottet's work
intimately will, I think, consider apt, one which I
hope will not be displeasing to the artist himself.
There is in his painting—take the triptych, for
instance, in which he reveals himself most fully—
something closely knit, something penetrating, which
may well be likened to the texture of some power-
ful symphony. Its orchestration is clever, compact,
and complete, but in no way overloaded; very
rich and clear, well within the grasp of the unini-
tiated, yet overflowing with delicious effects which
the expert will relish. One cannot take Cottet's
work and compare one part of it favourably or un-
favourably with another. It is all one, and he has no
idea of regarding it otherwise. When he succeeds
in surrounding his figures with a concentrated ex-
pressive atmosphere, it is due to his extraordinary
sense of relative values, to his subtle colour-weav-
ing. This, it may be objected, is not particularly
everything has been achieved in this memorable
work by genuinely plastic methods—by scrupulously
expressive draughtsmanship, by colouring of extra-
ordinary harmony, by a scheme of composition
which, while perfectly well balanced, is yet full of
spontaneity and life. It is this sense of life par-
ticularly which institutes the triptych's highest
beauty; and to this is added that force which
springs from entire unity. There was danger here
of falling into the obvious error manifest in most
large canvases of to-day—over-diffuseness of matter.
But M. Cottet is equipped with too much logic
to fall into such a trap. Moreover, he derives
his inspiration from too direct a source—from
Nature and from Life themselves. This unity to
which I have alluded M. Cottet achieved in the
most natural way, by giving a common horizon of
blue sea and sky and atmosphere to the three
portions of his scheme. The sea and the sky form
the kit motif'of his work ; they mingle with all the
rest; they are at once the base and the summit,
the starting-point and the goal. It is, as it were,
a strongly marked rhythm running through the
intricacies of a symphony.
This word symphony leads me instinctively to a
comparison which those who know Cottet's work
intimately will, I think, consider apt, one which I
hope will not be displeasing to the artist himself.
There is in his painting—take the triptych, for
instance, in which he reveals himself most fully—
something closely knit, something penetrating, which
may well be likened to the texture of some power-
ful symphony. Its orchestration is clever, compact,
and complete, but in no way overloaded; very
rich and clear, well within the grasp of the unini-
tiated, yet overflowing with delicious effects which
the expert will relish. One cannot take Cottet's
work and compare one part of it favourably or un-
favourably with another. It is all one, and he has no
idea of regarding it otherwise. When he succeeds
in surrounding his figures with a concentrated ex-
pressive atmosphere, it is due to his extraordinary
sense of relative values, to his subtle colour-weav-
ing. This, it may be objected, is not particularly